Saturday Night Live begins its 38th season this weekend, with host Seth MacFarlane and musical guest Frank Ocean. (Consider this your reminder that we’ll have a recap up Sunday morning.) There’s been a large turnover since last season ended with the cast, Mick Jagger, Arcade Fire, and the Foo Fighters singing “She’s a Rainbow” to Kristen Wiig, who departed along with Abby Elliott and Andy Samberg. They’ve all had largely nice things to say about their time working on SNL since leaving, but that hasn’t always been the case. There’s been plenty of fussin’ and fightin’ amongst cast members, writers, guest stars, the network, and (especially) Lorne Michaels since the sketch series first aired in 1975. Here are 10 of the most bitter behind-the-scenes feuds.

Chris Kattan vs. Norm Macdonald

In November 1997, Mr. Macdonald talked about his feelings toward Mr. Kattan in an interview with Rolling Stone: “I don’t know, but to me he seems gay…He claims he’s not, but I’ve never seen, like, a guy who’s not gay seem so gay. I don’t find him funny. What can I say? Never made me laugh.”

In the same article, Mr. Kattan responded: “Norm gives me a hard time…If Norm says I’m gay, then put in that I say he’s an asshole.”

While the in-print bickering made for good copy, people who were around Saturday Night Live when both Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Kattan were cast members said it carried over into the show. “They had a very acrimonious relationship,” said a source connected to SNL. “Norm would rip [Mr. Kattan] to his face. Norm’s a weird guy. If he doesn’t like someone, he’ll say it to his face.” (Via)

Winner: What, Chris Kattan seems gay? In that outfit? In one sense, Norm’s comments made perfect sense (again, see the Mango outfit), but in all other senses, the hell is he talking about? What does seeming gay have to do with being funny? Still, because he’s Norm Macdonald, who’s almost always hilarious, and not Chris Kattan, who’s rarely if ever funny, Norm wins. Then again, I haven’t seen Delgo in awhile…

Chevy Chase vs. Bill Murray

Chevy Chase had left the show to pursue a movie career, and when he returned to host an episode, his jilted castmates asked Murray to confront him backstage. As legend has it, insults were thrown (“Medium talent!” being Murray’s rumoured slight of choice) and so were fists.

“It was really a Hollywood fight, a ‘Don’t touch my face!’ kind of thing,” recalls Murray with a smile. “Chevy is a big man, I’m not a small guy, and we were separated by my brother Brian [Doyle-Murray], who comes up to my chest. So it was kind of a non-event. It was just the significance of it. It was an Oedipal thing, a rupture. Because we all felt mad he had left us, and somehow I was the anointed avenging angel, who had to speak for everyone. But Chevy and I are friends now. It’s all fine.” (Via)

Winner: They’re allegedly friends now (or at least friendly), but I’m not going to declare a winner until Murray makes a guest appearance on Community as Jeff’s dad. Is it weird that I want to see that more than Annie and Britta go full CJ and Abby? Didn’t think so.

In the 2002 book Live From New York, an oral history of the show, castmate Jan Hooks sniped: “I just have a particular repulsion to grown women who talk like little girls. It’s like: ‘You’re a grown woman! Use your lower register!'” (Victoria, by the way, claims her weird voice is the result of a medical defect: a “congenital palatal insufficiency.”)

But Hartman didn’t want to talk about the Son of God. And Lovitz asked how Jesus, “a grown man,” could have fit in his mother’s womb to be born again. When Victoria left audiocassette box sets of the Bible in each castmate’s mail slot for Christmas, they were angrily returned.

Writer and performer Al Franken, now a Democratic U.S. senator for Minnesota, cornered her once, Victoria says. He said he was “offended” by her “ditzy” act. “Maybe I’m overcompensating,” she retorted, “because everybody here is dying and going to hell, and I’m supposed to tell them about Jesus.”

Another Franken sketch, “A Limo for the Lamo”, had a dramatic effect on SNL. Aired in 1980, it was a blistering on-air attack on NBC President Fred Silverman, with Franken calling Silverman “a total unequivocal failure” while holding up a graph showing the network’s prime time ratings plummeting. Silverman didn’t laugh at all, and reportedly started treating Michaels like crap, leading to Michaels’ departure from SNL at the season’s end — along with the entire cast. (Via)

Winner: While at NBC, Silverman had a hand in developing Hill Street Blues, The David Letterman Show, Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, Cheers, and later in life, through his own production company, Matlock, Jake and the Fatman, and Diagnosis: Murder. Franken became a United States senator. The winner, obviously, is Jake and the Fatman, I mean, Silverman.

Nora Dunn vs. Andrew Dice Clay

The Diceman (whose real name is Andrew Silverstein) is hardly surprised by such reactions anymore. His humor has drawn complaints from women, gays and other groups that have been its targets, and last year Clay was banned for life from MTV for ignoring a pledge to forgo profanity. Some of the offended have retaliated; a West Hollywood billboard with his picture was recently defaced by a group calling itself Activists Against Sexist Pigs. And two weeks ago both Saturday Night Live cast member Nora Dunn and Irish singer Sinéad O’Connor both refused to appear with him when he was SNL‘s guest host. The pair’s protest, however, stirred up so much publicity that SNL got a huge ratings boost, and the controversial comic wound up with his biggest audience yet. (Via)

Winner: No one? Dunn has appeared in a number of impressive movies and TV shows — Pineapple Express, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Zoolander, Futurama, Pushing Daisies — but usually in tiny roles, if not characters that go by “British Designer” instead of an actual name. The Diceman continues to be a farting nicotine stain on the art form known as stand-up comedy, though he will be in Woody Allen’s next movie, alongside Cate Blanchett, Louis C.K., and Alec Baldwin. But if I had to name a winner, I’d go with Dunn, simply because Andrew Dice Clay is awful, you bunch of f*cking smelly, d*ck-loving baboons. OH.

Tracy Morgan is one funny motherfucker. Every time I see him on a talk show (Letterman, Leno, whatever) he makes me laugh so hard I cry. He’s not a great actor, granted. But there are plenty of great comics who can’t make the transition to great actor.

The Eddie Murphy-David Spade feud is my favorite, because that joke was hilarious and true. If Eddie had been a man about it and hosted the show, he could have thrown it back. But he was too busy singing with Michael Jackson.

I totally agree. Just more of a comment on how Eddie lost his edge trying to be the world’s biggest star. If he’d had a better sense of humor about himself, maybe his movies wouldn’t have been so awful after Boomerang.

There was a time between Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day came out that I thought Bill Murray was a bitter old curmudgeon and Chevy Chase was still a god after doing Fletch, Vacation and Spies Like Us.

Now, Murray seems to be really enjoying his “life as performance art” thing (btw, I hate that phrase), and Chevy seems like such a sanctimonious prick. Every time I see him on Community, you can almost see him thinking “Don’t you know who I am, I’ll tell you what’s funny”

The biggest mystery is how Victoria Jackson ever got cast in the first place. The only thing I remember about her is her super-wierd dance number about how she loved a cop where she stood on her head and wrote something on her leg in lipstick. Chick was weird.

I remember Jackson saying in an interview that she grew up without TV. I though that was a major impediment to SNL success. She did a mean Rosanne Barr though. Dead on.

By: Immortal 9

09.14.2012 @ 3:21 PM

Good god, I remember that dance number and it was the most retarded fucking thing that ever happened on Weekend Update. I was hoping that while Jackson was doing her headstand, Kevin Nealon dropkicks her off the desk.

Pretty remarkable that he’s had an uninterrupted 15 year run in network prime time on three separate shows that have gone pretty much unwatched by human eyes. Outside of our solar system he may some day be hailed as a god.

Yes, he did date Heather Locklear. No, I don’t know where he hid her family.

He has made such a career playing the exact same guy in a whole bunch of filler TV shows. Shows that have been on for years, are usually before or after really popular shows, but no one knows a damn thing about the show in question.

I need to listen to Norm MacDonald on WTF again. He was pretty adamant about not being paired with a woman anchor for Weekend Update and I recall he got some shit basically saying women aren’t funny.

Dennis Miller, who last I heard was a few years ago still telling Saddam jokes from the days of the Herbert Walker Bush administration, did say that he loved that when writers would pitch ideas Norm would be direct in saying “that’s shit.” I have to appreciate that honesty when you’re collaborating to have someone who is willing to call someone’s idea stupid and move on.

“He says that you might be able to get some dancers up here” Dancers? If they’re dancers I’m Fred Astaire, although the same choreography was used by those bald vampires in the sewer scenes of Blade 2.

I’m not in his head but he’s probably not using it in the context of the so-called “Oedipal complex” but rather Oedipal meaning of Oedipus. In context I’d guess he’s saying something like a “kill your father” thing or maybe he just means a really dramatic, violent moment, but it’s easily possible he just doesn’t know what he’s saying.

What was that about Nic Cage? When discussing Segal it said that Lorne brought up Segal was the worst host ever when talking about Cage in Season 18… I can’t find anything about that episode.. did he bring up Segal because Nic was badly behaved too? I MUST KNOW

answer-in Cage’s monologue he kept name dropping every hot actress that he’s made out with, etc in a movie making him come off as a dick. Lorne tried to humble him by asking how would he like someone to say the same shit about Sofia Coppola. “HEY MAN THATS MY LITTLE COUSIN THERE!!” then he was humbled and asked if he was the worst-“No, that’d be Seagall.” You’re welcome, sir.

Also, since I’m 80% certain that Bill Murray is my biological father (not based on looks, but awesomeness), I am quite offended that you cannot see that he is the obvious winner here…or in every situation really. Bill Murrary vs. X…Bill always wins. It’s basic science, you guys.

There’s more to the Norm vs. Kattan thing. Kattan was also notorious for wedging his way into sketches, taking credit and just blatantly stealing sketches. So for this article to just talk about the whether or not Kattan is gay is very misleading and makes Norm sound like a homophobic which is not true about him.

You forgot to mention Seth MacFarlane’s feud with Macdonald. McDonald was originally the voice of death on Family Guy; that is, the warmly sarcastic grim reaper character that is oft- featured, though now with the voice of Adam Corrolla. Apparently, Macdonald would rarely show up on time for recording sessions, if at all. MacFarlane noted in an interview that he learned a valuable lesson after firing Macdonald, “That it might be a good idea to feature people who actually want to be on the show.”
As about as gracious a sh**-talking as you’re going to get, yet Macdonald spent the next several months trying to tell evevyone that Family Guy was garbage.
Kattan is right, he’s an asshole.

There’s some classic feuds on here. I always suspected Kattan was that guy who would feud with people.

I’m interested to know which of the castmates of the past 6 or 7 years have had some major feuds. While I love Jason Sedeukis and Kristen Wiig, both of them seem like the type that would totally feud with other cast members. And they’d probably be right, too.

You know, this article was really good & well-written up until “Tracy Morgan vs. Chris Kattan & Cheri Oteri” where he names six different members of the SNL cast (Tina Fey NOT BEING ONE OF THE SIX) yet he made Tina Fey the winner. So whoever wrote this, is putting Tina Fey on a pedestal…sure, she’s definitely that little miss ‘other side of the tracks’ awkward rebel girl with the pseudo-intellectual glasses that we’ve all grown to find irresistibly hot…but that Petite “I weigh 125 pounds if I have cement shoes on like the mother from the end “Jerky Boys: The Movie” (1995)…that’s just not what I find attractive as an adult…Give me a Barbara Brickner, a Natalie Laughlin or a Anansa Sims ANY DAY.

Norm MacDonald never made ME laugh, and as for his take on C.Kattan. “I think he might be gay.” SO WHAT?! That’s his reason for not getting along. Well, that’s not surprising for anyone who recalls NM’s UNFUNNY Weekend Update segments, where he was constantly sneaking in snide anti-gay comments. This washed-up prick is now doing commercials for a cheap Chicago car insurance company. Good riddance.

And looking over the list one more time, it’s hard to believe the show has had so many homophobic and sexist cast members. Kind of a sucky legacy. And to the post above that asked to name one Nora Dunn skit, I can do three off the top of my head: Pat Stevens, The Sweeney Sisters (with Hooks–they even opened the Emmys one year), and her sendup of Linda Dano on the Lifetime talk show, Attitudes.